Subject: 2001 Mulholland Blue (Metallic) Prowler
Time: 4 hours for correction including polymer wax
Areas: Trunk, rear fenders, hood
Chemicals: Prima Swirl, Prima Epic, Black Wow
Tools: Makita Rotary buffer, PC with OneGrip, Compressed Air
Pads: LC Orange, LC White, LC Black

The customer called me up earlier in the week from a referral by my good friend Joe at SuperiorShine and scheduled to have his Prowler paint looked at. The owner said the finish was perfect except for a scratched area that he accidentally induced while working on the car. He tried correcting it with Meguiar's M80 and M83 with his G100 PC, but wasn't getting satisfactory results, so Meguiar's suggested he contact a professional.

Never having worked on a Prowler before, I was ready for the challenge.

Under the sunlight, the metallic blue paint hid the defects pretty well, except for some noticeable scuffings near the top and bottom of the trunk lid. Over all, I felt the car was approx. 95% flawless. Swirling was evident on the rear fenders and portions of the trunk lid.

Once inside the shop and under controlled lighting I could see a greater number of defects in the trunk area, rear fenders, and hood. None were very major, so a light polishing was necessary.

I chose to use my rotary buffer with a white LC pad and Prima Swirl for the correction. The paint on the Prowler is pretty soft and corrects easily. A few places I increased the aggressiveness with an LC orange pad to remove some Random Isolated Defects (RIDs). I followed the correction with the same white pad and Swirl with the PC, then went to wax using Prima Epic.

These are the types of defects I was correcting.


Light scratches






Had to pay special attention to these graphics and the pin striping that was signed!


The rear fenders had some light swirling.


Some more very light scratches




So I started by protecting the clear bra edges with blue tape. The pin striping that runs from front to rear, and I used a plastic drop cloth to tape off the convertible top.



More areas of taping for protection.


And polished and polished and polished!! With the rotary and white pad. I used my dual lighting rig see the defects. And once I got to the point of where it was 99% flawless, I just put dabs of polish on the remaining defects so I could polish those areas alone.




When I polish, I always work with the least aggressive methods. I work with a light touch, and careful passes, removing only as much paint as necessary to make the correction.


4 hours later, we pulled it into the sun and it was flawless!! Truly flawless!








Gorgeous!!! Wooohooo! I'm done and it's still daylight!



No matter what angle, the paint was gorgeous!!








The customer left very pleased and I was happy to have added this cool hot rod to my portfolio.

 

Wow, Richard that looks fantastic! Just a question for you on the clear bra...you show that you taped off the edge, and we're wondering how you address the clear bra itself. Do you go over it with the PC? If so, what product and pad do you use?

Lori and Don

 

The edge was taped off to prevent any polish or wax buildup along the edge and making the seam more visible with white residue-which is a pain to clean out after the fact.

You can't do much for clear bra. You can try polishing with the PC, and a white pad, using either some Swirl or maybe finish. In this case, I didn't do anything with the clearbra. Normally the only time I will try to polish it is because the owner had a problem with it--maybe it was yellowing, or maybe there was a bug impact or some defect that he wanted fixed. The last thing I want to do is haze the bra or make an otherwise decent shaped clear bra look worse by trying to polish it.

Unfortunately, clear bra shows swirls, orange peel, and holds stains. Your probably best off just applying a glaze or wax to it. You could potentially run Amigo on it to take advantage of it's paint cleansing properties, but I wouldn't expect a day and night difference.

Richard

 

Thanks Richard! We weren't quite sure what, if anything, to do on the clear bra. We'll just keep waxing it for now as it's still in pretty good shape.

 

Not sure how I missed this one. Nice work Richard on a fun car.
I'm assuming the pin stripe is susceptible to polish? I'm asking because I am considering adding some tasteful pins in a couple of spots on the MINI.

 

The owner was very concerned about the pin stripe--it was one of the first things he asked me about and what I would do to protect it. He then told me the story that the pin stripe actually has the painters signature in it and that signifies that this particular car is one of only a handful that was painted by this guy making the paint job priceless.

I touched the pin stripe and could feel it was raised. Meaning the car was painted and cleared, then the pin stripe was hand painted on over the clear. I couldn't tell if it was also cleared but I opted to protect it with blue painters tape instead of polishing over it.

Richard